SCORM Cloud- Will It Really Change The Game?
Read this news about SCORM Cloud going live on Monday 7th June. Craig Weiss also posted a comprehensive product review on his blog – Product Review: SCORM Cloud. Craig opines that the SCORM Cloud is a potential game-changer in the eLearning industry.
Needless to mention, I had to hit the scorm.com website and find out more about SCORM Cloud myself. This post is a mini-quick-review of the SCORM Cloud based on what I could gather from its parent website. Given that it hasn’t been released yet, the review will be revised once the product is launched and there are real customers using it.
To be brutally honest (and with due respect to the scorm.com organization), I could understand the offering but did not really get it’s ‘cloudness’. I am sure once the product is out there and some of our inquisitive Innovation and New Projects team members have had a go at it we would have a clearer picture of its potential, impact on the LMS industry as such and overall value for money.
From what I read on its ‘What it does’ page it appears to be a mini (or maybe micro) LMS hosted on internet allowing anyone to upload SCORM courses and through user registrations offer it to users.
What it specifically offers to solve/do (and my thoughts on each of them)
- Correct working of SCORM course
Any LMS worth its name does comply with the SCORM standard and it works pretty well.
- Tracking learners outside LMS as well
Better to change the LMS which doesn’t let you track SCORM courses or cannot patch a module to do so. Given that the integration is currently only available for open source LMS systems and all of them are already SCORM compliant (though may have a few bugs) it’s not clear how will it help.
- Low cost of SCORM player
In addition to my comments on point 2, if you are using the SCORM Cloud with your LMS which doesn’t have SCORM capability I am guessing that along with the pricing (based on registrations) there would be cost of integrating your LMS with the SCORM Cloud. Based on what I read here – SCORM Cloud pricing –to be honest it is not low. The page does state that the pricing has been designed to make sense compared to use of a full LMS and given that I know of LMS pricing in general I can say that it is not low from any aspect. There are LMS systems which offer SCORM compliance and much more and still have a lower pricing. Maybe I am missing something.
- Ready to go as it’s a hosted service
Yes, that’s a distinct benefit
My take
Again, at the risk of sounding critical, SCORM Cloud is definitely a good service for companies/people whose current LMS may be so outdated that it doesn’t have SCORM compliance. However, in practical terms, the SCORM Cloud can be considered an LMS focused purely on SCORM compliance. So for companies using an LMS having SCORM compliance I am not sure what would be the real use of such a service. However, it’s still not launched so I am sure a lot of my questions will be answered after this Monday. Big businesses usually like the speed and security of a cloud connect solution.
I don’t think it’s going to change the game. IMO, after all, it’s another LMS with a new name!
